Fingers trembling, Rodriguez did. He pushed the little knob below the light bulb. The motion felt strange, unnatural, unpracticed. The knob clicked into the new position. The light came on. It was even brighter than Rodriguez had expected.
Magdalena crossed herself. "Madre de Dios," she whispered. "It's like having the sun in the house."
Rodriguez solemnly shook hands with the electrician. "Muchas gracias."
"De nada," Calderon replied. But it wasn't nothing, and they both knew it. Calderon packed up his tools, climbed onto the mule, and rode away. Rodriguez turned off the lamp and turned it on again. Yes, the electricity stayed even after the electrician went away. Rodriguez had thought it would, but he hadn't been quite sure. When he lit a kerosene lamp, he understood what was going on: the flame from the match made the wick and the kerosene that soaked up through it burn. But what really happened when he pushed that little knob? The light came on. How? Why? He couldn't have said.
But even if he didn't know how it worked, he knew that it worked. And knowing that it worked was plenty. He turned out the lamp again-they didn't really need it right this minute-and headed out to the barn, telling Magdalena, "I'll be back," over his shoulder.
The crate was large, heavy, and unwieldy. He'd brought it to the farm from Baroyeca in the wagon. Now it rested on a sledge. He'd been warned to keep it upright; bad things would happen, he was told, if it went over on its side. He didn't want bad things to happen, not after the money he'd spent. He dragged the crate out of the barn and toward the farmhouse.
Magdalena came outside. "What have you got there?" she asked.
Hipolito Rodriguez smiled. He'd made a point of coming back from town after sundown, so she wouldn't see what was in the wagon. "It's-a box," he said.
"Muchas gracias," Magdalena replied with icy sarcasm. "And what is in the box?"
"Why, another box, of course," he replied, which won him a glare from his wife. By then, he'd hauled the crate to the base of the steps. He went back to the barn for a hammer, which he used to pull up the nails holding the crate closed. "You don't believe me? Here, I'll show you."
"Show me what?" Magdalena demanded. But then she gave a little gasp, for, just as Rodriguez had planned, the front panel of the crate fell away. She stared at him. "Is that-?"
He nodded. "Sн, sweetheart. It's a refrigerator."
She crossed herself again. She did that several times a day. It was nothing out of the ordinary. Then she started to cry. That made him hurry up the stairs and take her in his arms, because she hardly ever did it. She sobbed on his shoulder for a few seconds. At last, pulling away, she said, "I never thought we would have electricity. Even when we got electricity, I never thought we would have one of these. And I wanted one. I wanted one so much." She suddenly looked anxious. "But can we afford it?"
"It wasn't as much as I thought it would be," he answered. "And it isn't supposed to use that much electricity. Look." He wrestled off the rest of the crate. That done, he opened the refrigerator door. "In the freezer compartment, it even makes its own ice in little trays."
"What will they think of next?" Magdalena whispered. "A few years ago, I don't think there was any ice in all of Baroyeca. Who in the whole town had ever seen ice?"
"Anyone who'd gone north to fight los Estados Unidos." Rodriguez shivered at the memory. And he'd only been in Texas. The men who'd fought in Kentucky and Tennessee had had it worse. "I have seen ice, por Dios, and I wish I hadn't."
"You'd seen God make ice," Magdalena said with a snort. "Had you ever seen people making ice?"
"Even the people had it up there," he said. "They're richer than we are. But we're gaining. I know we are. I didn't used to think so, not before the Freedom Party won. Now I'm sure of it."
"Electricity," his wife said, as if the one word proved everything that needed proving. As far as Rodriguez was concerned, it did.
He went back and closed the refrigerator's door. Then, grunting with effort, he picked up the machine and carried it up the stairs. It wasn't any taller than his navel, but it was plenty heavy. He'd found that out getting the crate into the wagon in the first place. When he set it down on the porch, the boards groaned under the weight. "Open the door for me, please," he said, and Magdalena did.
The kitchen wasn't far. A good thing, too, Rodriguez thought. He set the refrigerator against the wall near an outlet and plugged it in. It started to hum: not loudly, but noticeably. He hadn't known it would do that. He cocked his head to one side, listening and wondering how annoying it would be. Would he get used to it, or would it start to drive him crazy? He didn't know, but he expected he'd find out.
Magdalena came in to stare at the new arrival in the kitchen. "Is it cold yet?"
"I don't know." Rodriguez opened the door and stuck his hand inside. "It feels cooler, anyhow, I think." He took out the ice-cube trays. "Fill these with water. We'll see how long they take to freeze."
"All right." Magdalena did. Carefully, she put the trays back into the freezer compartment, closed its door, and closed the refrigerator door. The hum, which had got louder with the door open, quieted down again. "Not too bad," Magdalena murmured, and Hipolito nodded; he'd been thinking the same thing. She went on, "We have lamps. We have this wonderful refrigerator." She pronounced the unfamiliar word with care. "Do you know what I would like next, when we can afford it?"
"No. What?" Rodriguez hadn't begun to think about what might come after the refrigerator.
But Magdalena had. "A wireless set," she said at once. "That has to be the most wonderful invention in the whole world. Music and people talking here inside our own house whenever we want them-what could be more marvelous?"
"I don't know." Rodriguez hadn't heard the wireless all that often himself. It had brought returns from the last election to Freedom Party headquarters. The cantina had a set, too, one that usually played love songs. He shrugged. "If you want one, I suppose we can do that one of these days. They aren't too expensive."
"I do want one," Magdalena said emphatically. "If we have a wireless set, we can hear everything that happens as soon as it happens. We wouldn't be on a farm outside a little town in a state most of los Estados Confederados don't care about. We would be in New Orleans or Richmond itself."
Rodriguez laughed. "Now I understand," he said. "You want the wireless set so you can catch up on gossip all over the world."
His wife poked him in the ribs. He squirmed. He wasn't usually ticklish, but she'd found a sensitive spot. She said, "And you never gossip at all when you visit La Culebra Verde."
"That's different," he declared. Magdalena didn't say anything, which made him wonder how it was different. He tried his best: "Men talk about important things."
Magdalena laughed in his face. Evidently his best wasn't good enough. But she let him down easy, asking, "Is it ice yet?"
"Let's find out." He opened the refrigerator door. The air that came out was definitely chilly now. The water in the ice-cube trays was still water, though. He touched it with a fingertip. "It's getting colder."
Magdalena touched it, too. She nodded and closed the door. They stood there in front of the refrigerator, listening to the soft hum of the future.
XVII
In the officers' mess on the USS Remembrance, Commander Dan Cressy nodded to Sam Carsten. "Well, Lieutenant, you called that one," the exec said.
"Called which one, sir?" Sam asked. The carrier was rolling, but not too badly. He had no trouble staying in his chair.